Category Archives: Politics

Sinterklaas can still be Sinterklaas.
He and his Pieten can still arrive in Amsterdam on the steamboat.
They can still have all the processions through cities and towns.
People can still come out to welcome them.
Kids can still wave at Sinterklaas and give the Pieten their drawings.
The Pieten can still hand out candy.
They can still wear the same costumes.
Everyone can still eat pepernoten,
and kruidnoten,
and taai-taai,
and suikerbeesten,
and amandelstaven,
and chocolate letters,
and marzipan,
and speculaas poppen
and drink hot chocolate.
Kids and adults can still place their shoes at school, at work, on the street and in the bars (a relatively new phenomenon).
Everyone can still sing Sinterklaas songs.
You can still have Book Piet, Music Piet, Organizer Piet, Grumpy Piet and what have you (also a relatively new phenomenon).
Everyone can still buy Sinterklaas and Piet dolls at Xenos (again, a relatively new phenomenon).
Kids and adults can still place their shoes at home on Sinterklaas Eve.
People can still exchange gifts.
Everyone can still make surprises.
A good time can still be had by all.

The only thing that would change is the color of Piet’s face and hair.

And this is how you react?

(Welcome in the Netherlands, where all cultures are permitted except our own.)

“I love the poorly educated,” said Trump when he won the primary election in Nevada. He consistently lies about everything factual, but as far as his character and attitudes are concerned, he’s also consistently an open book. I’m sure he does love the poorly educated, in that he can make them believe anything, that they will let him get away with anything. “I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” That right there tells you what he thinks of his voters. They’re schmucks, useful idiots. Continue reading →

Well, there was supposed to be a November 4 demonstration calling to impeach Trump and Pence at Republic Square Park today from 1 – 5 pm, but I was there from 12:45 to about 2:30 and there was pretty much nobody. One guy with a sign, everyone else could have just been there because it was a park. Continue reading →

Most of you Americans on the left were gobsmacked when Trump won the election. You did not see it coming at all; you thought that common sense would prevail in the end, but it didn’t. You completely underestimated the allure of Trump. Continue reading →

An important aspect of fascism or any kind of dictatorship is forcible suppression of opposition. In a fascist country, the state is all-powerful and all-important–if you’re not for it, you’re against it and therefore an enemy of the state. Continue reading →

Hitler made sure the German youth was indoctrinated at school and in the Hitler Youth. His idea of a perfect Germany with perfect Germans was a country populated by blond-haired, blue-eyed people–the men strong and handsome, doing manly-man things like intimidating and killing the Untermenschen, starting with the Jews, and the women buxom and beautiful, keeping house and having as many perfect German babies as possible. For the purpose of this article I’ll focus on the men. Continue reading →

Fascists don’t consider violence to be per definition bad, as long as they are the ones meting it out, through violent and intimidating government actions and policies, armed militias and/or war. In Germany the Nazi Party quickly became militarized and bullied and intimidated its way into power.

But first, let’s look at America’s history of violence and intimidation. Continue reading →

What Folks Have Been Reading

Archives: The Whole Shebang

Archives: The Whole Shebang

WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING

The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.

Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.

The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.

Four generations of black women in Louisiana, from a kitchen slave in the 1830s to a 'free' woman during the Jim Crow 1930s. What they had to do to survive, to keep what they could of their family together. Powerful.

Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.

Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.

Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.

A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!

In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.

Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.

Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.

A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?

A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!

Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.

Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.

"What a repugnant spectacle our country has become! Falsehood, cruelty and madness everywhere, and brute force in the wings waiting to finish us off. "

Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.

This. Explains. Everything!!!

Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?

Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.

A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.

Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.

The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.